The present invention relates to milking equipment and, more particularly, to devices and methods for enabling the application of treatment fluid to animals' teats and the treatment and cleansing of teat cups, post milking.
Conventionally, automatic milking equipment installed in a milking parlour comprises a milking point at each animal stall within the parlour. Each milking point includes a milking cluster of teat cups for connecting the equipment to the teats of an animal to be milked. In the case of cows, for example, each milking cluster has four teat cups. Each teat cup comprises a hollow shell supporting a flexible liner which has a barrel portion for engaging about a teat and, at its upper end, has a head portion with a mouth through which the teat is engaged with the barrel of the liner. At the opposite, discharge end of the teat cup, the liner communicates with a flexible, short milk tube connected to a, so called, clawpiece of the cluster where the milk extracted from the animals teats is collected and delivered, via a flexible, long milk tube, to the collection chamber of the equipment. Upon commencement of milking, a vacuum is applied to the teat cups, via the long milk tube, the clawpiece and the short milk tubes, for the purposes of extracting milk from the teat cups. This vacuum also leaks between the barrel of the liner and the engaged teat and is applied to a void formed about the teat in the head of the liner in order to capture the cup on the teat. Milking is achieved by automatically and alternately applying vacuum and atmospheric pressure pulses to the space between the shell and the liner of each teat cup in order to flex the liner and stimulate discharge of milk from the engaged teat. The clawpiece includes a distributor for distributing the pneumatic pulses to the individual teat cups, via flexible pneumatic lines, as well as for distributing disinfectant and other treatment fluid, water and compressed air to the individual teat cups for the purposes of treating and cleansing the teats and teat cups.
After completion of a milking cycle, the milking cluster at each milking point is withdrawn from the teats (commonly referred to as “take-off”) such as by an automatic cluster remover, and the animal's teats are manually or automatically treated with disinfectant and conditioning fluid, such as, iodine or chlorohexadine and an emollient. The manual dipping, spraying and otherwise washing of teats and teat cups with disinfectant and cleansing fluid is labour intensive and has the additional drawbacks that the washing process may not be carried out in a timely fashion and the quality of the washing may be variable dependent upon the operator. Automatic systems which are currently available for mechanically spraying disinfectant and washing fluid onto teats and into teat cups tend to give variable results. Moreover, whether manual or mechanical spraying is utilised, the resulting vapour or spray mist may pose a health risk.
An automatic system for disinfecting at least the lower parts of teats engaged with teat cups and also the teat cups, themselves, upon completion of a milking cycle, is described in DE-A2 622 794. In this system, each teat cup has a nozzle arranged to inject sanitising fluid into the lower part of the barrel of the teat cup liner at a position below the engaged teat. The nozzle is directed upwardly in order to discharge the sanitising fluid toward the engaged teat. It is connected to a source of sanitising fluid which is operated to inject the sanitising fluid into the teat cup, upon completion of milking and whilst the teat cup is engaged with and being removed from the teat.
A system for automatically cleansing teat cups subsequent to milking, is described in EP-A-0 543 463. Each teat cup has a tube for supplying cleansing fluid to the interior of the teat cup liner connected to the short milk tube at a point near the liner. This supply tube is arranged to inject a stream of cleansing fluid into the liner in a direction towards the mouth of the liner. The cleansing fluid is injected into each teat cup after withdrawal of the teat cups from a cow and when the teat cups are hanging with their mouths downwardly, in a rest position. Hence, the cleansing fluid is squirted downwardly into the milk line and via the inside wall of the liner to the mouth of the liner. The teat cup may alternately be flushed several times with cleansing fluid and compressed air for blowing clean and drying the teat cup.